Good Riddance To The 'Twenty-Teens'

[quercus-bicolor-2 (Quercus bicolor)]

Thanks Dave for the clarification. That makes sense to me.

[helix]

Chris,
I couldn’t agree with you more on conditions to fret about. I have some personal views which I would like to share:

• 8 to 10 billion souls alive on the planet 99% of them subsisting on fossil fuel derived nitrogen and caloric inputs

This is the biggie. It's not clear that a world without abundant energy resources can support this number of people. The permaculture / organic folks have made great strides in recent years in building soils and improving productivity, but this comes at a steep investment of human labor. Even in the best-case scenario, a lot of people living in cities and suburbs are going to go "back to the land." In not-so-favorable scenarios, I don't like to imagine what may happen.

• Depleted soils lacking both macro and micro nutrients, as well as a balanced and thriving soil microorganism ecology

Although I'm still behind the curve, I do subscribe to organic / permaculture methods. And I think these will become more widespread in the coming decades. There's some intensive labor involved, but I've seen with my own eyes how soils can be improved. Micronutrients seem to me to be the Achilles Heel, as replacing them in depleted soils involves mining them and transporting them over long distances, activities that could become... "problematic"...

• The majority of people living in cities which are simply energy sinks and waste generating machines

I have no doubt that this will change, one way or the other. At some point, depopulating cities will result in a scramble for productive land. Some chilling incidents could transpire. My hope is that strong leadership and a generous dollup of human compassion will make a satisfactory transition possible. But I'm far from convinced that they will.

• Wonky weather that will reveal the extent to which being lucky counts for more than being clever. That is, the 10,000 years of human progress maps onto a 10,000 year cycle of extremely stable climate.

Well, who knows? Weather has always been a problem, and whether it will be more so in the future is, to my mind, an open question. As climate changes, will some regions benefit while others suffer? Not sure. One thing I do know is that many more people will be involved in agriculture, and so will keenly feel the effects of whatever payback the climate has in store.

• A global economic model that is not even remotely tuned for local efficiency or sufficiency and will have to be entirely remodeled for a lower energy future.

This is the second biggie, because we're now talking about cui bono. Those benefiting from the current system are certainly going to do everything possible to preserve their positions, and I have no doubt that violence will still be on the table. Once again, I'm hoping for strong leadership. And once again, I'm far from confident that we'll get it.

• Complex and complicated alt-energy systems that require lots and lots of continuous mining and manufacturing to repair and replace.

Clearly these systems will have to be... "reviewed"... As far as I can see, thorium reactors are the only hope I can see of maintaining anything resembling the current lifestyle, and even at that, that resemblance might not be all that strong. The problem is that this is still an unproven technology and the waste disposal problem is still with us. The other alternative is that we get something resembling a 19th century economy and social system, augmented by whatever technology is feasible in a world with much less abundant and less reliable energy -- what John Michael Greer has dubbed "steampunk technology". This might not be so bad, providing we survive to see it! In either case, life is going to be very different. As Admiral Rickover pointed out in his incredibly prescient 1957 speech, increasingly crowded conditions require that people give up liberties in order to live side-by-side with minimum strife. If you live in the country, you can pee in the bushes. If you live in a city, peeing on the sidewalk isn't a great option. Some other system will have to be put in place, and it will require collective action to do so. People will have to accept greater supervision of their activities by some authority to manage resources and reduce frictions. This runs strongly against the grain of American culture. It could be a rough transition. But the only alternative I can see is less crowding. And that might be rougher still.

[mki-2-2 (MKI)]

DFT: ...regardless of what we think is “the right thing”

To me, to claim I know what is the "right thing" at a macro level is just loco. What do I actually know besides it's a rigged game? Nothing. The Fed plays the tune. I dance. QED.

Now here’s a question. MKI, are there companies that you will not invest in, because you think the products they provide are immoral or antithetical to your worldview, and you just don’t want to be associated with them – energetically?

I don't think I (or anyone else) is smart enough to know what is going on "energetically" (3BP and all that). Regarding tobacco/coffee/drugs/processed food, I don't use it them myself but have no moral problem with those who do, so of course I will invest in them. On energy/environment? If people truly cared, they would change their own life first, because that's the guaranteed win (e.g. walk/bike rather than drive/fly, garden, stop eating processed foods, repair/reuse). I already do all those. But again, I have no moral problem with 99.9% who don't. They might well turn out to be right; I've been wrong before.

[mark_bc]

As far as I can see, thorium reactors are the only hope I can see of maintaining anything resembling the current lifestyle, and even at that, that resemblance might not be all that strong.

I don't have much of any faith in thorium reactors making any difference. There are several problems I see. One is that electricity is the easiest form of energy to provide. And it is the least useful industrially. The opposite of this is oil which is turning into the most difficult to provide and most useful because you can do and make pretty much anything with it. Oil is running out waaaaay faster than our ability to make electricity. Electricity will be the last energy form to become scarce because we have hydro, and can burn pretty much anything to make it. Without oil, cohesive economies could not function. You can't make most of the things we use without oil. Without oil, you can't build a thorium reactor. So since oil will run out first, what good is a thorium reactor? Coal could be used in oil's place. But if there's enough coal to make oil then it could also be used to make electricity. Certainly cheaper than building a thorium reactor. When we run out of oil society will be in disarray; exactly the conditions that make a nuclear reactor not feasible in terms of the highly complicated processes required for its manufacture, maintenance and energy distribution into a grid. In short, as society devolves from lack of energy, simplification will be required. New complex technologies won't help us.

[ao1 (ao)]

Does anyone have any figures on the percentage of oil that goes to produce energy versus the percentage that goes to produce such things as plastics, chemicals, and other synthetic materials? Also, does anyone have any idea what percentage of oil’s use for the non-energy purposes can be replaced by coal? To me, a compelling argument for moving away from burning oil and other carbon fuels for energy as well as getting around the ACC vs. non-ACC argument would be to preserve it for other more vital and irreplaceable uses. This argument would have parallels to moving away from the (in my opinion) insane practice of “spending” top soil to grow corn to produce sugar to produce alcohol to produce energy.

[nate]

https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/commodities/energy

[davefairtex]

Ok Nate that’s just the coolest chart ever. I’m going to save this one. Lawrence Livermore is good for something after all, it would seem.
I’m going to be a little bit of a poop and point out that yours is from 2013, and the solar & wind components of electrical generation are higher now than they were then. I had to snap this from the llnl site and upload it…boy. What a great chart.

[nate]

If you go to the link in my earlier post, you can look at the data both by year and state.

[mark_bc]

All of oil’s uses can be replaced by coal as coal can essentially be turned into oil in factories. It’s just not a very favourable process energetically although you can get any feedstock you want out of it, it just would likely be an energy sink.